`L' Crash Victim Says `Thanks' Again To Caring Physician

Joy, Not Pain, Fills A 30-year Reunion

On a chilly fall day 39 years ago, Emilie Wauters made two decisions she has regretted every moment since.

She took the Howard Street "A" train home from work rather than the "B," and she chose to sit in the front car, rather than the middle.

Today, at age 82, Wauters remembers every second of that evening, Nov. 5, 1956-the last day she ever worked, the last time she walked without a cane or a crutch. The images play in her head like a newsreel.

"We come up on Sheridan Road, we turn, and the light says `stop.' "

And I look, and I say, `My God, it's the North Shore, and it's not going to pull out.' "

"And I could see it, and we drove." As she spoke, her brow furrowed, and she pounded her bony fist into her hand. "And we busted into that train."

Eight people died and nearly 200 were injured on the day the brakes failed on the northbound Howard Street "L" train.

Wauters herself barely survived: Pinned by the roof of the train, her legs were broken in several places, her hips shattered and one twisted leg was badly burned by a fire that erupted. It took more than two hours for rescue workers to free her from the tangled metal.

As traumatic as the memory is for her, Wauters recalled it with a warm smile Monday afternoon.

For the first time in about 30 years, she was reunited with the doctor who mended her bones and helped her regain the ability to walk, the man who coached and cajoled her through the five years of physical therapy and repeated operations.

Dr. Sidney Sideman left Chicago's Weiss Memorial Hospital in 1966, and Wauters had not seen him since.

He was 52 the year of the accident. He was tall, handsome and always honest with her about the difficulties she would face. Wauters was 43 and immobilized by a full-length body cast for nearly six months.

During those months, she said she lay and longed for his morning visits.

"He would come in and say, `How are your tootsies feeling today?' " and I would always say the same thing: `Painful, doctor, painful,' " she said. "He was so handsome."

At a reception with old friends and coworkers at the Marriott Hotel on Michigan Avenue on Monday, Sideman recalled her injuries, and how they challenged him.

"She was shattered-her spine, her hips, her legs-I didn't know where to start," he said. "I remember she was a very brave girl and took everything I dished out."

The accident challenged the Chicago Transit Authority as well, according to transit historians. Richard Kunz, editor of the New Electric Railway Journal, said that the crash prompted the city to make several safety changes. For one, the Wilson Street station had three tracks at the time. A fourth was added soon after the accident. And the signaling system was scrutinized.

In and out of hospitals, Wauters underwent a total of 38 operations. Two years ago, she was mugged on the way to a North Side grocery store and was hospitalized.

Until the accident, Wauters had worked downtown, making watches at a Loop jewelry store. She had come to America from Brussels to live with an uncle in 1945 after she and her Belgian husband divorced.

Wauters said she loved the feeling of independence and self-reliance she had as a single working woman in Chicago, and to this day mourns them. After the accident, she was awarded a $175,000 settlement from the CTA. But medical and legal bills quickly depleted that, and now she lives on a small pension and Social Security payments.

"It took so much out of me," she said.

But at the reunion with her doctor Monday, the years of pain melted away for a while.

"Look what he has done, he put me straight," she said. "Now I can live again. Now I am happy."